Unconventional
by Aruchyan
Summary: OT4 - How four friends fall in love, and all the bumps along the way.


It must have been Satoshi's influence. After all, of the four of them, he was the most unconventional, the one that stood out the most, the one that strayed from the norm.

Having been his best friend for the majority of middle school, Houtarou should have expected the unexpected from Satoshi at all times. Houtarou was a creature of habit though—it required the least amount of thought and energy as muscle memory usually took over for most processes—so he became complacent, so to speak. When nothing deviated from the norm, he assumed it would remain that way. Most days, he wasn't disappointed, but that day was an exception.

That day, he woke up at seven as usual; he ate breakfast and was out the door at the usual time; Satoshi tapped him on the back in greeting at the school entrance as usual; they went through the usual classes; Houtarou fell asleep during history as usual; they left school at the same time as usual; Satoshi and Eru walked slightly farther ahead than Houtarou, chatting animatedly with the boy on the left and the girl on the right with her bicycle as usual; they parted with her at the crossroads as usual.

The whole process was so painfully mundane and familiar that Houtarou briefly wondered if he was unknowingly caught in a time loop that made him repeat the same handful of days over and over again. Even now, with just Satoshi and a comfortable silence, nothing was out of the ordinary. It was odd that he was even questioning it; this normalcy was what he lived for.

Then Satoshi stopped in the middle of the road—a break from routine. Houtarou thought nothing of it—anomalies weren't unheard of—and stopped as well.

Houtarou experienced a moment of déjà vu—the sun illuminating Satoshi's face just as it had the day of class 2-F's showing of the completed movie, the boy's expression in a similar state of distress, reluctance, and compassion for Houtarou as he fought for words.

The words escaped him though, and for several minutes they simply stared at each other. Well, more like Houtarou stared at Satoshi while Satoshi's eyes darted everywhere except to his best friend.

Finally, after what seemed like much internal debate, Satoshi seemed to give up on words altogether. Before Houtarou could react, Satoshi closed the distance between them, pulling the taller boy down harshly by the collar and crashing their lips together.

Bright flashes of color erupted in Houtarou's mind, like the sort he would see in the night sky during festivals, and it felt like the sort of description he'd read in shoujo manga, not in real life, and certainly not while kissing another boy.

"It was like fireworks," he said to Satoshi days after establishing their relationship. It had been a simple matter, as they had a mutual understanding of each other that they could never find in anyone else.

At the point of this conversation, Satoshi was taking full advantage of Houtarou's empty house, meshing their fingers together and trailing kisses down his boyfriend's jaw, and Houtarou made no moves to stop him.

When Houtarou spoke, Satoshi stopped immediately. "What was like fireworks?"

"Our first kiss," he whispered almost reluctantly, a light blush dusting his cheeks.

Satoshi grinned. "That's unnaturally romantic coming from you," he remarked, and Houtarou almost expected him to laugh. Instead, Satoshi rewarded him with a slow and sensual kiss, the kind Houtarou liked best—he could take his time and save energy for the time when it would inevitably become more heated and fervent, and then he would be glad his house was empty.

They agreed their relationship was to be kept secret; no matter how odd Satoshi—and by extension, Houtarou—was in the public eye, both of them knew what happened to those who didn't meet society's standards for love.

Still, Satoshi took every opportunity for physical contact. Incidentally though, Houtarou was the one who initiated most of their kisses at school. In the privacy of the clubroom when Mayaka and Eru weren't around, it was a simple matter to lean over the table—being mindful of the cactus that was a permanent fixture in the center—and steal a kiss.

Unfortunately, during one such kiss, Mayaka entered the room. Needless to say, the results were disastrous.

At first, the boys stared at her, and she at them, both parties unable to comprehend the situation. Then, Mayaka screamed, prompting the boys to scream in response, and it all just went downhill from there.

"Y-You…You…You two, _together_?! I can't—I _won't_ believe it. There must be some explanation. No way would you choose—I can't accept this! This can't be real. This can't—"

"Mayaka, calm down!"

_Slap!_

Satoshi had grabbed her shoulders, possibly a little too suddenly or a little too roughly, and the next thing he knew, a red welt the shape of a hand had risen on his cheek. Stunned, he looked down, his wide eyes meeting Mayaka's watery ones for a split second before she pivoted around on her heels and sprinted out the door.

Satoshi made to go after her, but Houtarou stopped him. "Let her go."

"Why?" Satoshi asked, eyes flitting anxiously at the door.

"She probably needs time by herself to come to terms with it all. It's not every day her best friends turn out to be gay and seeing each other. We're probably the last people she wants to see."

"But I can't just leave her like that…"

"I thought you didn't like her."

"Well not the way I like you, but—"

"Then it doesn't matter what she thinks of us. Let her come to her own conclusion about how to treat us and whether or not she'll remain friends with us."

Satoshi disagreed. Mayaka was his friend, and friends were there for each other regardless of the circumstances between them. So, he took a deep breath, and returned to his best friend's side. There, he kissed him one more time, hoping to convey all his feelings through it, before turning away and running after Mayaka.

Houtarou wasn't all that surprised. Friends had always been important to Satoshi, and he'd be stupid to try to make the boy choose. However, Mayaka refused to accept their relationship, and instead grew angrier with them and their life choices. Satoshi's desperate attempts to placate her anger only did the opposite, and an unforeseen consequence of his persistence to win her over was his negligence of Houtarou. They obviously couldn't touch or kiss at school any more for fear of a repeat incident, but Satoshi followed Mayaka home every day to try to talk to her—as if the endless talking at school wasn't enough—and thus Houtarou was left alone.

Normally, Houtarou wouldn't mind the lack of affection; affection took energy and no matter how pleasant it felt, energy was energy. After more than a week, however, it felt as if something was glaringly missing from his life, and he wanted it back.

"Why don't you just join us?" he suggested spontaneously.

Their incredulous expressions clearly questioned his sanity. He cleared his throat. "I'd imagine your main issue is that Satoshi chose me over you. Don't try to deny it; I know you better than you think. So, to solve this, why don't you just join our relationship?"

A beat, and then a bubble of laughter passed Satoshi's lips. "If our local energy conservationist is willing to have two lovers at once, I almost have no choice but to agree."

Mayaka took more convincing; anything remotely resembling a romantic relationship with Houtarou was less than desirable to her, even with the added incentive of finally becoming involved with Satoshi. Houtarou's suggestion had brought her guard down though; long enough for Satoshi to slip into her defenses and plant a chaste kiss on her lips.

"Do it for me?" he asked sweetly. She practically melted, barely able to stutter out a 'yes.'

"You're rather manipulative," Houtarou stated later on to Satoshi. They had parted ways with Mayaka, as the girl still needed time to come to terms with what she had agreed to.

"But she's so cute." Satoshi cooed. "I'm so blessed to have had her as an admirer for so long."

"Admit it; you liked her just as much as she liked you in middle school."

"Sure—" was the reply, which didn't exactly confirm or deny anything; it sounded more like a compromise, "—but then there was you."

Houtarou supposed that was enough of an excuse; he couldn't really focus on interrogation anymore when Satoshi was pressed up against him _just so_.

Mayaka integrated into their relationship fairly seamlessly. It wasn't so different from their middle school days. The trio shuttled from one place to the next on Satoshi's whim, acting as any other group of friends would act except with more touching and kissing, especially on Satoshi's part.

Mayaka and Houtarou planted their mutual boyfriend in between them every chance they could—in line at the ice cream shop, in their seats at the movies, and even just walking down the streets. On Mayaka's part, she had yet to warm up to the idea of dating Houtarou. Houtarou wasn't about to complain about her reservations, not when he was the one who suggested their threesome in the first place knowing full well such reservations would arise. So, he let her shy away from him and failed to make a fuss when she didn't want to kiss him or even hold hands.

Satoshi became caught in their cold war, a war of egos, waiting for the other to crack first. As a result, each time they maneuvered him to the middle, as if they were building a great wall, his smile became a little more burdened, a little more forced, so even as he held hands with both of them, he couldn't feel at all pleased.

He tried his best to keep them together, but their outings as a trio became fewer as he preferred to satisfy them both separately, as if he had two different relationships instead of one large and slightly complicated one.

Houtarou and Mayaka silently praised Satoshi's tolerance of their hesitance, until he grew tired of their tiptoeing around each other and locked the two of them in his closet together.

"I can't do this anymore," Satoshi told them through the door. Houtarou winced at the exhaustion prevalent in his voice, and though the closet was dark, he knew Mayaka had done the same. "I'll be back in a few hours, okay? By then, I expect you guys to at least be on better terms, got it? Play nicely, you two!"

They heard the door click shut, prompting Mayaka to shout after him and pound on the closet door, to no avail. Houtarou collapsed in a convenient pile of stuffed animals, unwilling to waste energy protesting, particularly when they received no response.

After several minutes of listening to her tirade on the poor door, Houtarou put a hand on her mouth, the other falling to her hip, and dragged her down to where he was sitting. The toys were soft, and as he sensed her annoyance dissipate, he let go, though she remained seated in between his legs.

"Seriously Ibara," Houtarou wondered aloud after a few moments, "what do you have against me? I haven't done anything to you."

"You're just weird," Mayaka answered immediately, "and I can't understand why Fuku-chan would associate with you."

"If it makes you feel better, I don't know why he'd associate with me either," Houtarou tried.

"It just doesn't make sense!" she exclaimed. "You two are complete opposites! Fuku-chan is sociable, active, funny and upbeat, while you're as social as a slug—"

"Why do you consistently compare me to a slug?" he grumbled.

She ignored him. "—you're a lazy bum, you can't tell a joke to save your life, and I get tired just looking at you. I just don't get it."

"Have you ever heard of 'opposites attracting'?"

"But normally you two wouldn't run in the same circles, let alone become best friends."

"But it happened, and now we're more than friends. There isn't much you can do about it."

An uncomfortable silence passed over them, and Houtarou was sure that if Mayaka wasn't still sitting so close to him, she'd be physically squirming.

The quiet was broken by a sigh. "I only do what I have to do," Houtarou muttered. "What I have to do, I do quickly."

"What was tha—"

She was cut off by a pair of lips on her own. Houtarou's lips were softer than she imagined, contained more tenderness than she expected.

The kiss was brief, adherent to Houtarou's motto, but it housed weeks worth of pent up emotions, enough to take their breaths away. Their faces remained close, close enough that Mayaka felt rather than heard Houtarou's following words.

"I love you, too, Mayaka."

Coming from Houtarou, the confession seemed somewhat mechanical and obligatory, but Mayaka still felt charmed. She smiled, wondering if it was really that simple, and burrowed her face into the boy's shoulder, whispering "I love you, too."

When Satoshi cared to open the door several hours later, he discovered Mayaka nested comfortably in Houtarou's lap, the two of them dozing. He giggled about it the next day and waved around pictures he had taken, much to their chagrin, but they all held hands comfortably after that no matter who was in the middle.

With the addition of Mayaka, however, their relationship became more volatile. It might have been the simple unbalance of having three instead of two, or it might have been that each of them now had two personalities to clash against instead of only one.

Satoshi and Houtarou had never gone beyond the occasional petty argument when it was just the two of them, but as soon as Mayaka was officially inducted into their party, something went awry.

"Houtarou, how come you've never told me you loved me?"

Houtarou blinked, his book slipping from his fingers. "I…haven't?"

Satoshi sighed, almost as if he had expected this reaction. "No, you haven't. Whenever I say it, you make some vague sound of acknowledgement, and for some reason, I've accepted that."

Houtarou frowned, unsure where this sudden discontentment was coming from, not to mention he had lost his page in that book. This was Satoshi, the poster child of sunny dispositions; why was he suddenly unhappy with how things worked in their relationship?

"What's your point? I'm not about to say it just because you want me to."

"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't." The resigned lilt in the words had Houtarou bending to pick up his book just to avoid the other boy's eyes.

"You're so weird, Ore—Houtarou," Mayaka said exasperated as she joined him in the club room after school the next day. She had since come to terms with her newly discovered affection for Houtarou and thus tried her best to act at least a little more intimate by calling him by his given name. Currently, his name was Orehoutarou and had been such for a week.

"How am I weird _this_ time?" Houtarou groused. "And have you seen Satoshi? I think he's avoiding me right now."

"That's what I'm here about; Fuku-chan's angry, and even though it's your fault, he's angry at me, too."

"How do you know it's my fault?"

"Because Fuku-chan complained to me about your little conversation yesterday."

Houtarou's head drooped almost comically with the sudden metaphorical weight of guilt. He ran a hand through his hair, as if that would comb out all his frustrations. "That idiot; I thought we had already established my feelings on all this."

Mayaka sent him a sympathetic look. "Fuku-chan needs more than implications sometimes. If you haven't actually said it—Oh!" She slapped a hand to her forehead, berating herself. Houtarou could almost see an actual light bulb appear over her head. "I know why I'm dragged into this and why Fuku-chan's more torn up about it than usual."

She pointed so her index finger was only centimeters from Houtarou's nose, as if she was indicating the culprit of some mystery in a manga. "Remember what you said to me while we were locked in Fuku-chan's closet?"

"I said several things that time," Houtarou said plainly, for once not knowing the answer to the riddle.

"You said, out loud, that you loved me," the girl informed him, mildly relishing in the rare expression of belated realization forming on Houtarou's face, "and yet, you haven't said it at all to Fuku-chan?"

"…Damn."

She smirked, briefly triumphant. "That's why you're weird. Most people in your situation would immediately say 'I love you' over and over to avoid the angry boyfriend stage. You just outright refused, so he's jealous of me and insecure about you."

"What the hell does he have to be insecure about?" Houtarou growled, standing up and making his way to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To find him, of course."

Finding Satoshi proved surprisingly difficult. He possessed an uncanny ability to blend into the background when necessary, and he was smart enough not to go anywhere near their usual haunts.

While they searched the school for the third time, Mayaka felt unusually talkative, and Houtarou felt unusually responsive.

"Ore—Houtarou, why didn't you say anything to him?"

Houtarou replied automatically. "I didn't have the need to."

"Use your head, Oreki," Mayaka drawled, momentarily relapsing back to his full last name.

"I _am_," Houtarou insisted. "I've never had to worry about confirming my feelings for Satoshi because he understands me better than anyone else in the world. You, on the other hand, need constant reminders."

"Aren't you taking him for granted?"

"Never. I don't understand why he talked to me in middle school at all or how he somehow became the center of my admittedly small universe, and I'm worried that someday he'll disappear from my life and also that I'll be too passive to care that I'm sorely missing out on the best thing that's happened to me."

Mayaka was momentarily struck speechless. Then Houtarou continued. "Satoshi is special because you and I never would have associated with each other if it weren't for him. However, I feel the same way about you."

A small smile graced Mayaka's lips, and she stood up on her tiptoes to give Houtarou a small peck on the cheek. "Fuku-chan isn't as confident about things as you think he is. Our changing dynamics might have affected his outlook on our whole relationship and he needs the reassurance. If you're not careful, he really will disappear."

Houtarou didn't reply as he opened the door to the Earth Science Prep Room and found Satoshi sprawled out on the table.

"I didn't think you guys would come back here a third time," the boy mumbled into his arm. "Looks like I've been caught."

Houtarou took a deep breath, his shoulders slumping, looking the picture of dejection. "Satoshi."

Satoshi sat up, a mask of happiness and mild confusion slipping onto his face. "What's with the face? You look like you're trying to tell me you killed my cat."

Houtarou frowned. "You don't even have a cat. That's not even remotely related and you know it."

"My improvisational skills are faulty today. Sorry you have to suffer through my bad jokes."

"I love your jokes."

The offhand comment caught Satoshi's attention, abruptly destroying the mask. Houtarou and Mayaka instinctively stepped backwards as Satoshi stood, an indescribable expression on his face. One thing was certain: he was angry—completely and truly angry.

"So you'll say you love my jokes, but not me?" he demanded. "You'd say you love everything else before me. After all, why does Fukube Satoshi need love? He's no one to take seriously. Was I just a placeholder until someone like Mayaka could come along?"

Houtarou visibly flinched under the barrage of accusations. He hadn't braced himself enough for this, even though he had known it was coming. "You can't be a placeholder."

"Then what; a tool?"

"No!" Houtarou yelled. His outburst was followed by a pause filled with harsh breathing from the exhausting emotions flying around the room. He swallowed before continuing. "Satoshi, did you know all words have weight?" Satoshi's furrowed eyebrows were enough of a response. "The weight is dependent on the emotions bottled within the words. I don't talk too much because words can be really heavy after a while. I'm not that expressive because my emotions will just add weight."

A pause; a breath; a slight change in volume. "The words you're asking me to say are perhaps the heaviest words in existence. They require so much energy just to say, and you know I don't have a lot. They need to be said only when necessary, or else they're a waste. If I said it whenever I pleased, they would burden me, you, Mayaka, and even Chitanda. Sure, they might satisfy you for a moment, but then they'll float away and be forgotten, like balloons."

He stepped closer, steadily, until he was within arm reach of Satoshi. "The thing is I want them to be as heavy as I can make them. I want to see just how much I can weigh down these words, make them really count for something. You're so incredibly special to me; I'm not about to degrade your existence with empty words. I know I've waited too long, but they'll be special, just like you. I promise."

The last wisps of anger had evaporated completely from Satoshi's face somewhere around the balloons, leaving behind an expression of acceptance. Satoshi leaned in closer, knocking his head softly against Houtarou's chest. "Don't keep me waiting."

"I'll try."

It took exactly ten days, fifteen hours, twenty two minutes and a second for Houtarou to keep his promise.

Somehow during a visit to Mayaka's house, they thought it was appropriate to start a tickle war. Mayaka managed to extract herself from the fray, leaving the two boys to wrestle. Houtarou, in a brief display of strength, managed to pin Satoshi to the carpet with his arms above his head. Chest heaving from the effort, Houtarou examined the boy beneath him.

Satoshi's hair was messy, and his clothes wrinkled. His face was flushed, and soft gasps of air came from parted lips. Their eyes met, and Houtarou could only make one conclusion: Satoshi was perfect.

"I love you," he blurted without thinking, shocking himself as much as the other two in the room. Instinctively, he sat up, consequently releasing Satoshi and giving him the opportunity to wrap his arms around Houtarou's neck and pull him in for a kiss.

When they parted for air, Satoshi was crying. "Thank you," he choked out between sobs. He tried his best to smile through the tears, feeling like he was fit to burst with happiness but unable to halt the stream. The weight of the words had broken the dam within him, letting loose all his bottled up emotions.

Houtarou fumbled around for a moment, unsure of what to do as he hadn't expected tears. Had he actually upset him? Was it too sudden? Should he be wiping the tears away or giving up before he even started because the task was obviously futile? He looked frantically at Mayaka who was standing a ways away looking awfully starry-eyed. No help there.

"Whatever you're thinking, you idiot, it's wrong, so shut up your brain and kiss me." Without waiting for a response, Satoshi pulled him once again into a kiss tasting mildly of salt. Houtarou fell into the kiss, his hovering hands gently cupping his boyfriend's face and bringing him just a little closer.

They eventually pulled back, breathing heavily and staring straight until each other's eyes. No matter how spontaneous the confession was, they both silently agreed it was as special as they both had hoped.

Mayaka took that moment to bounce back into their arms, kissing them both on the cheek. Everything was right in the world.

Then there was Eru. As her three best friends worked out the kinks in their odd relationship, they had forgotten about her, but in the backs of their minds, they knew she fit in with them somehow.

After all, Houtarou couldn't keep his eyes off her.

Now, he mainly did so for observation, but the fact remained that she interested him on a completely other level from the rest. Despite his devotion to Mayaka and Satoshi, he experienced an unnatural gravitation whenever she was around, compelling him to favor the girl over his two lovers. Mayaka experienced a similar phenomenon, one that was so strong that the two boys wound up walking in on her kissing Eru in the clubroom.

"Isn't this considered cheating?" Houtarou teased lightly.

Mayaka glared at him. "You know we were thinking of including her anyway. Anyway, if I didn't do it, you probably would have soon enough."

While the two of them bickered, Satoshi stayed quiet, closely examining Eru with a blank stare. Once she noticed, she blushed, unused to such scrutiny from Satoshi.

"Fukube-san, is something wrong?" she whispered behind her hand, successfully avoiding catching Mayaka and Houtarou's attention.

She blinked, and Satoshi was smiling, no hint of the expressionless face from before, as if she had imagined it.

"Nothing at all."

The split second switch piqued the girl's curiosity though, and she continued to think about it for the remainder of the day and well into the night. She planned to ask Satoshi about it at their after school meeting, but he never came.

It wasn't too odd for him to miss a meeting or two; he was a member of the Student Council and the Handicrafts club in addition to the Classics Club after all. But Eru began to worry when he missed several in a row with no plausible explanation besides Houtarou's non-committed "He's in a Student Council meeting."

It really didn't help when she overheard Mayaka and Houtarou whispering in the stairwell on the way up to the Earth Science Prep Room.

"When is Fuku-chan going to come back? He's only delaying the inevitable."

"Satoshi's more delicate than he acts. Bringing her into our group might have hurt him."

"But majority rules, right? And it's not like he dislikes her. In fact, he's really happy to be around her."

"He didn't fall for her like we did. Yes, he likes her, but he's not in love with her and, well, the idea of sharing is probably scaring him."

The two of them had reached the clubroom, with Eru not too far behind, when the door opened abruptly, revealing a frowning Satoshi.

Taking in their abashed faces and Eru peeking around the corner, he scowled, an out of place expression on his features.

"Let's break up."

Houtarou reacted immediately, as if he had expected it. "Absolutely not. You're the one that started this whole thing, you know."

"That gives me every right to end it," Satoshi shot back. "Stay happy with Mayaka and Chitanda and leave me out of it."

"What are you saying, Fuku-chan?" Mayaka cut in. "We need you as much as we need Chii-chan!"

Satoshi scoffed, a bitter sound that chilled all three of them to the bone. "Why would you need me? I'm just holding you guys back from being happy with her."

He tried pushing past them, but Houtarou grabbed his arm and held on tight enough to bruise. "You're just scared."

"No," Satoshi denied, though his voice shook, "I see the way you guys look at her. She's what you've been dreaming of. You want her much more than you want me."

"That's because we don't have her yet," Houtarou insisted.

Mayaka nodded. "That doesn't mean we love you any less."

"Just stop it!" Satoshi yelled, shocking the other two into silence. He took the opportunity to rip his arm out of Houtarou's grip and dash down the stairs.

Houtarou and Mayaka were too stunned to follow, but Eru followed immediately, doing her best to stay far enough away so Satoshi wouldn't notice. It took quite some time before the teen slowed, coming to a rest on a park bench far from the school and anyone's home.

Breathing hard, he didn't notice Eru sitting herself down next to him, and almost screeched in fright when her bright eyes appeared in his peripheral vision. "Chi-Chitanda-san! Why are you h-here?"

He accidentally met her eyes and instantly looked elsewhere. "I was worried about you," Eru replied.

Satoshi laughed, hollowly, slipping on a smile. "Why would you be worried? I'm fine; completely and utterly fine, nothing to worry about."

"Well if I'm not worried," Eru mused, frowning, "then I'm curious!" She clasped Satoshi's hand within her own, leaning ever so slightly into his chest. "What were Oreki-san and Mayaka-san talking about in the hall? What does it have to do with me? Why aren't your expressions like Fukube-san? I'm cur—"

"Hold on, what did that last one mean?" Satoshi interrupted.

Eru blinked. "Your expressions aren't like Fukube-san," she repeated. "They do this strange thing that I can't explain, and it's like you're no longer Fukube-san." Her eyes became downcast. "You're scared and very sad. I don't understand your circumstances, but I want to help."

Satoshi realized she was still holding his hand. Squeezing her hand, he brought her attention back upwards. "Maybe you _can_ help."

Three wasn't enough time for surprise to take a hold of her before Satoshi captured her lips, coaxing them into a dance. It was different from kissing the other two. Mayaka's kisses were like chasing butterflies—flighty, bright, and sometimes hard to get—and Houtarou's were soft, oddly fluffy, and moved at their own pace, like clouds.

Eru's were sophisticated—it was obvious she had no experience whatsoever in kissing, but there was a noble sense to them—and feathery, and the closest things Satoshi could think to compare them to were angels.

As they parted, Satoshi felt more winded than usual, the absurd idea that he had just kissed an angel running rampant through his head and tearing somewhat successfully at the cobwebs of doubt cluttering his mind.

They could make room for her. She would fit right in without destroying their world. Mayaka and Houtarou didn't love her any more than they loved him, and he felt the same way.

It wasn't about the kiss. Satoshi wasn't nearly so shallow as to let a mere touch of the lips win him over from weeks of denial. Sure, it was a perk, but the kiss had merely been a catalyst, much like Eru herself had been a catalyst to the charmed, mysterious lives they now led within the Classics Club. Eru had so willingly opened her heart to him, and who was he to refuse? The spark was there; and Satoshi was ready for a lightning storm.

.

"If getting you two alone was all it took, we should have locked you two in a closet together a long time ago, just like you did to us," Mayaka said to Satoshi as the light-haired boy treated the four of them to popsicles.

"It was a little more than that," Satoshi protested, biting into his icy treat. "It was a combination of careful planning. An empty bench, the setting sun, the fact that I knew Chitanda-san was following me—"

"Eh?!" Eru paused, momentarily distracted form licking her popsicle. "You planned all that?"

"Are you serious?" Houtarou drawled, fanning himself with his shirt and nibbling on his pale blue dessert. It was identical to Satoshi's, since Houtarou hadn't cared what he got. It was melting surprisingly fast though, and he hoped it wouldn't drip onto his clothes.

Satoshi grinned. "Of course not. But the pieces fell into place perfectly." He had already eaten down to the last bite of his popsicle, but as he leaned in to finish it off, it fell off its wooden stick. "My popsicle!"

"Have some of mine," the other three said simultaneously.

If anyone saw them, he would think they were just a regular group of friends. If he looked a little closer, he might notice that Mayaka leaned rather close to Satoshi, and Eru had a hand on Houtarou's arm. And, if he knew what to look for, he might notice the way Mayaka stared at Eru, and the way she stared back, and how Satoshi and Houtarou's fingers met for a moment and lingered, meshing for a split second before parting reluctantly.

But no one knew, and no one ever would know. They knew they were all in love, equally, and irrevocably, and that was all that mattered.

.

Weeks later, not much had changed.

They still met in the Earth Science Prep Room, a journey that Houtarou loathed every day but still made without complaint because his three favorite people were in it.

They still walked home together, which Mayaka disliked as she had to leave first, but they walked slow enough that she still was able to spend time with her three best friends.

They still got ice cream on the weekends, an activity that never failed to remind Eru of her uncle, but she went through with it knowing there were three people with handkerchiefs waiting next to her in line.

They still went through with the usual antics, solving mysteries and running around school, because it made Satoshi feel normal to expend as much energy as possible. But there were three people to remind him that he didn't have to keep up his mask all the time.

Weeks later, it was all simply routine—if just a little unconventional.


End file.
